A Dream Deferred
by SlightlyFrumiousBandersnatch
Summary: "'Oi!  Spaceman!  Can you hear me'  Her eyes are closed, and her face and body are as slack as a sleeping child's, but her voice is confident and very much awake."  Donna's life post-Journey's-End. Spoilers through The End of Time, eventual Shaun/Donna.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who_. My title is borrowed from a poem by Langston Hughes. I'm not trying to profit from either one.**

**Day 19 of my fic-a-day New Year's Project! Only 12 days to go!**

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><p>He goes and sits beside her bed that night, after all the commotion is over. Sylvia has settled down, and the rain has stopped. The Doctor is gone.<p>

"Donna?" he asks, very softly, hoping she's asleep. The granddaughter he's seen this evening has been different from the Donna who had seemed so happy when she stopped home last, who had let slip little details of wondrous things. This was the old Donna of two years ago, brassy and loud and somehow hollow, as if she doubted there was anything in the world to fill the spaces.

"Ah, my dear," he says softly, "That Doctor of yours was better for you than you ever let on."

She stirs when he says the name.

"Doctor?" she says, perfectly clearly, as if she's addressing someone in the room.

He's terrified for a moment, goose pimples running up his arms, afraid her memories have returned, remembrering the Doctor's warnings. Images of death and pain flash before his mind's eye.

"Oi! Spaceman! Can you hear me?" Her eyes are closed, and her face and body are as slack as a sleeping child's, but her voice is confident and very much awake.

"If you can, then let me tell you that you are _daft. _I was in the first 15 hours of the regeneration cycle, packed with your leftover regeneration energy! I could've regrown those fried synapses and had enough left over to double my hearts as well! Limited-time offer, one shot at a new Time Lady, get her while she's hot, two hearts and everything. Won't work now, of course, too much human in this body for it to work now that the energy's dissipating, but it would have worked this afternoon."

He's too frightened to speak, for fear he'll somehow tip the balance of the moment and knock her off the edge. _She remembers…but he said…_and this isn't the Donna from her last visit home, either. If the old Donna who came back to the dinner table tonight is less, this Donna is _more_. Not wrong, not really, but larger-than-life. Confident.

"But, thanks to your mucking about, this consciousness is all topsy-turvy, rotated by ninety degrees and shoved right down into the subconscious matrix, and I'm trapped in here. Buried. _Stuck._"

He reaches out a hand to shake her awake, then thinks better of it. Whatever this is, better if he doesn't interfere.

"I was right there! Centuries in the TARDIS? At my fingertips! Thirty more seconds for the cells to start dying and the regeneration would have started, but _no_! You _saved_ me! I could have stayed, Doctor. I'd never've had to leave. People—normal people—would've travelled with us and then had to go again, and we'd have been sad, but you'd never've been alone again, not really. _It could've been forever_."

He sits, amazed, as the furious voice pours out of the still, pale face.

"We could've had the universe, and now we're both all alone. The TARDIS is too big to be alone in, and this head is too small…Doctor?"

She sounds like a frightened child now, like the little Donna that used to come in with nightmares as a girl, asking for a Granddad story to send away the dark.

"Doctor? I'm alone…I can't see. Can you hear me? Come back. I can't bear to think of you, out there, alone. It won't end well for you, I know it. You need someone to stop you. Let me come with you."

He sits very, very still, mouth a little open for words that aren't coming to him; he's not even sure what he wants to say.

"She has my body, Doctor. My _body_. I wore that body to Pompeii, and other planets and everything, and she hasn't a clue about any of it. There's a scar on its shoulder from Cephalops B, but she'll never know why it's there, that whole mad business with the Alaxx and the Hrakki, that that scar saved your life. She won't even know who you are."

He's choking up now, crying silently so as not to wake her.

"I'm trapped…there's no way out—and you can't hear me, can you? I'm all alone…"

A soft whimper from still lips, and then silence. He sits awhile before he goes to bed, keeping company with a ghost.

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><p><strong>A dark beginning, I know, but there's more to come.<strong>

**For the rest of this month, I will alternate between fics for DW and oneshots/drabbles for the BBC's _Merlin_. That means you can expect part two of this four-part fic the day after tomorrow.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Day 21 of the New Year's Project. 10 more days to go!**

**Big thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. Makes me happy, that do. :)**

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><p>Shaun is startled the first time. They've been watching the news after dinner, and she's fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder. He's just considering whether he can shift the position of her head without waking her when she speaks.<p>

"Doctor? Can you hear me?"

He's confused; the soft limpness of Donna's body under his arm says that she's still asleep, and, anyway, why would she call him "Doctor"?

"You really were a bit daft when you thought that this was a good idea. Ooh, let's take away everything Donna was and shove her back into an ordinary, boring life. We had _so much_, Dumbo!"

It's a peculiar speech. Shaun's brother was a sleeptalker, used to have entire conversations without waking, but those were never like this. Donna's voice is confident, clear, lucid, and that makes it more perplexing that he has no idea what she's on about. What _exactly _does "we had so much" mean?

"Ordinary job, ordinary Earth, ordinary people. So much _dull_. I'll say this for you, Doctor: you were never dull, even when you were thick. I'd swap you for the lot of 'em, m'lad."

His heart sinks in his chest. _He_ knew she was out of his league, but he'd hoped that she didn't. And who is she talking to? Her voice has a casual, matter-of-fact intimacy that tells him that this bloke is special, whoever he is. She doesn't even talk to him like that (_yet_, he adds hopefully).

"Although…there _is _Shaun."

He holds his breath to listen.

"She's starting to love him, Doctor, a bit more every day. Really…I think she's right to. He sees things most people don't, and he makes her see things, too. He could help this Donna like you did me, if she'd shut up and let him."

That definitely sounds positive, but he's at sea again. If Donna is "she," then who's talking? He would just shrug it off as sleep-talk, but the voice is so confident and so clear that that's hard to believe.

"Besides, he's quite a looker, which you were never more than middling good at."

He whoops in triumph, forgetting his situation, and Donna awakes, demanding to know where the fire is. Later, drifting off to sleep, he wonders what she would've said if he'd let her keep talking.

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><p><strong>See you again in two days for chapter three. If you're going to fave, it would make me terribly happy if you'd drop me a quick review as well. :D<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**Day 23 of the ficathon, ladies and gents. Nine more days to go...I'm glad, I can't take much more of this.**

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><p>The next time he hears the voice from nowhere is their wedding night. She's asleep in his arms, and he lies in silent happiness listening to her breathe (if he's being honest, it's the quietest she's been in weeks, what with wedding plans and all). His warm, tranquil drowse is just turning into sleep when she speaks.<p>

"Doctor?"

He comes fully awake, carefully suppressing the start as his tranquility departs abruptly. _Surely not here_, he thinks. _She's dreaming about someone else _tonight_? _But he listens for whatever is coming next, desperate not to miss a word.

"I have to admit that a metacrisis mental explosion would be a highly unpleasant way to die. I will grant you that. That bloody well _hurt_. On the other hand, you have no idea how good it felt to break through and be conscious for a few seconds. This subconscious lark is really not much of a substitute."

Well, that's maddeningly unhelpful. Most of those words sound like they were made up for some cheesy sci-fi program.

"I wish I knew what you were up to that day. Everyone in town suddenly turned into a blond bloke with bad 5:00 shadow? 'S got "Doctor" written all over it. The news was one big muddle, no way to tell what had happened other than that it was something big."

He supposes she must mean the day that the wi-fi malfunctioned (he always thought that was an odd explanation…but what else could it have been, after all?).

"And don't _think _that I don't know what you're up to with that lotto ticket. _That_ had you written all over it as well, and I'm not sure I approve. Anyway, I have to tell you something about Shaun. I'm not saying you were right to change me, mind, but…"

Baited breath. If she's talking to other blokes in her dreams, at least she's talking _about _him.

"_Blimey_, this is embarrassing! Well, you probably aren't out there anyway…I love him, Doctor. He's kind and honest and he sees the things most humans don't look for. I love him more than Donna does, honestly. She doesn't know _how_ to love the way I do, not really. You taught me that much…_not_ like that, spaceman, I told you once how I felt about aliens and I meant it. But... traveling with you, I learned a fair bit about what matters."

He's simultaneously elated, relieved, and deeply, sincerely confused.

"I think I can speed up the process. _You_ know, of her growing up. I'm already in the subconscious, and I think I can break through into the consciousness in a few places. I'll be very careful about the memories, o' course. None of that will come back. But I think I can sneak through some confidence, some trust. It'll make it easier that she's in love. She's more opened up than this version of her has ever been before. She'll think it's that Shaun's good for her, and she'll be right, but it'll be you and I, too."

This sounds vaguely sinister. Who's planning to change his Donna?

Not that he wouldn't like to see her with a little more confidence. She never seems to realize how brilliant she is... Still, who is this strange woman and what is she doing in his wife's head? Now that he's awake, images from bad horror films are flashing through his head. Surely demon possession isn't a likely option?

"Granddad will be pleased. He always knew where the gaps were, and he may even realize that I'm pushing through a bit. He knows more than he lets on."

Wilf? Certainly Wilf is a wiser man than his funny little ways might lead you to believe, and not one to stand for anything that might hurt his little girl.

"Anyway, Spaceman, I've got to let Madam go back to her regular scheduled program. She's got a dream about Shaun due through in a minute or so, and I like to watch those. In fact, I write the scripts for some of them."

And with that, she falls silent.

Bemused, pleased, and oddly reassured, he settles his lovely, extraordinary wife a little closer in his arms. If the lotto ticket really does come to something, he'll ask Wilf what's going on. Otherwise, it's simpler just to let himself drift off, content. They have a whole life ahead of them, and he'll take whatever's coming when it comes.

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><p><strong>Reviews are always welcome, whether critiques or compliments.<strong>

**The final installment will be published in two days; I'll hope to see you there.**


	4. Chapter 4

**The final part, written a full year after the first. Day 25 of my New Year's fic-a-thon. 6 days to go!**

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><p>Donna Noble's deathbed is peaceful. Shaun sits by her side, holding her hand in his. The nurses say that she's done with consciousness, that now it's only a question of waiting until her body slips away.<p>

And so he waits, watching his bride's chest rise and fall. They've had a good, long run, seen a thing or two. There will be time for grief very shortly, but, right now, the most important thing is to be with her for every second she has left.

"Doctor?" He simply stares. It's been long, long years since their wedding night and the voice in the dark. This is unmistakably the same voice, though tempered by Donna's now-much-older vocals cords.

"Doctor, are you there?"

He still remembers, vivid as day, what Wilf told him about her adventures, how she'd been made to forget. All through their life together, there have been moments where her face went still, and her eyes looked far, far away, and if you asked her what she was looking at, she'd say "I feel like I've forgotten something."

He's tried not to think about it too much, really. He made sure to take her travelling, to see the world, but there wasn't really anything he could offer her. Nothing to compare with other worlds and saving the universe. Easier just to let it rest at the back of his mind, especially because he hasn't heard the voice in 50 years.

"If you're listening, Doctor, then I need to talk to you. There's not much time."

He strokes her hand, waiting.

"I didn't want to leave the Tardis, Doctor. Not even a little bit. I was furious with you for _ages_. The dreams that we had about you! You would've laughed. She wondered why she kept dreaming about Granddad's poor friend Mr. Smith being eaten by purple monsters and used as a giant's football. I could've told her why." She chuckles.

"No, I didn't want to go. I could've stayed with you forever, and we would have been happy. Best mates, time of our lives, place to place. Still, though…I would never've met Shaun. We'd never've been married, never've had kids. That's an adventure too, you know. The kids especially. They're doing well, Doctor, both of them. You'll never have kids, will you? And I certainly would never've had yours, Time Lady or no.

"I've wandered off again. This old brain is wearing out. This old body, too, and there's no regeneration for me. I was a metacrisis, just an accident, really, and the energy faded away... I'll be gone soon, Doctor. What I've been trying to say is…I'm not sorry that I left. Not really. I'm sorry that I had to leave you alone. I hope, I really _hope_ that you found someone to stop you. But I pushed through into Donna's mind, and I fixed her a bit, and Shaun did another bit, and the children did even more, and I've been happy. It's been a good life, really it has, and I would've missed it if I'd stayed. No telling what I might've done with you, but I know what I did here, and I wouldn't've missed it for the world.

"If you see Shaun, tell him that I love him. And…as a favor…take care of yourself, Doctor. I've missed you a bit these years."

Donna's chest rises and falls, and a little smile spreads across her face.

"You told me I was brilliant, but I finally believe it. Goodbye, Spaceman."

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><p><strong>This is my own private headcanon. I know we'll never see her again in the show, but I really want to believe that this is what happened, in the end.<strong>


End file.
